“I’m sorry,” I said. “All I’ve done is delay the inevitable.”
He touched the Jumbler. “At least this way I don’t have to die slowly.”
“I’m not going to shoot you.”
“Even if our only other choice is recapture? We can’t escape. Your brother will execute us.”
I stared at the gun. Then I dropped it on the floor. We had come so close. Just a little more time and we would have made it off-planet. But close wasn’t good enough.
I stretched out on my stomach next to Jaibriol. Lying on his back, he trailed his finger along my cheek. “When I saw you in my cell, I thought it was another of my dreams.”
“Dreams?” I asked.
“After we met on Delos—whenever I was lonely, I dreamed you came to me.”
So I wasn’t the only one who had struggled with the memory of that night. It helped, knowing that. I turned on my side and propped my head up on my elbow as I gazed at his face. I had forgotten how handsome he was, even by Highton standards. It wouldn’t surprise me if Ur Qox had ordered doctors to fine-tune his appearance when Jaibriol was a boy. Anything to further enhance his son’s image as a hero of the Traders. Anything to draw attention away from Jaibriol’s inability to function as a true Highton.
Dark circles rimmed his eyes, though. His hair was rumpled. Shimmering black Highton hair. It was so odd to see it on someone so unlike a Highton. I touched his lips, running my finger over the top one, then the bottom. They felt chapped. Dry and cracked. Also warm. So warm. Rhon lips, full and inviting. I lowered my head, bringing my lips to his—
Jaibriol pushed me away.
I flushed. What was wrong with me, trying to seduce a man who had just spent days subjected to a brutal interrogation supervised by my own brother? “I’m sorry.”
He just stared up at me. Across the room, the old spire-clock ticked softly, tick-tick, marking off seconds. Then Jaibriol slid his arm around my neck and pulled my head down. I could smell him, a musky scent, heady and masculine. I closed my eyes, letting my lips linger on his mouth. It felt as good as it looked, warm and inviting. He lay tense under me, though, more like a plank of wood than a man with a woman he desired.
I lifted my head. “What’s wrong?”
He pushed up on his elbows, bringing his eyes level with mine. “It’s not you. It’s anyone.”
“Any lover?”
“Yes. No. No lovers.”
“You mean you’ve never had one?”
“That’s right.”
“I’d have thought every eligible woman among the Hightons would be throwing herself at you.”
“I didn’t want a Highton lover.” He grimaced. “Would you?”
“No.” With his barriers dropping to me, I recognized that same aloneness in him that I had felt the night on the docks, in the cover of the sea-lapping Delos night. He was lonely—achingly, bruisingly lonely. The wound had become even deeper, scarred around the edges, raw in the center.
“Couldn’t you take a provider?” I asked.
“I didn’t want one.” He pressed his palm against my chest, between my breasts, as if he were keeping me at bay. “Let someone that close and you become vulnerable.”
“How could a provider hurt you?”
“By recognizing me.” Softly he said, “By recognizing herself in me.”
I exhaled, understanding. “You had no friends at all?”
His face twisted. “I had Lord Quaelen, my ‘beloved’ mentor and guide. He didn’t like my showing attention to anyone.” Hatred sparked in his voice. “If I did, he found a reason to punish me.”
“Couldn’t you get rid of him?”
“He’s a master at Highton intrigue, even better than my father.” Jaibriol’s voice cracked. “Quaelen is empty, like a hole waiting to swallow me up. They’re all that way—my father, my so-called mother the Empress, all of them.”
“I’m sorry.” Gods, that sounded trite.
He watched me, concentrating, as if he could absorb me into himself. Then, with no warning, he pulled me down and rolled me onto my back, bringing his mouth down on mine. My lips parted and his tongue came into my mouth, first questing, then probing with more urgency. But it felt wrong. Not him, but me. I wanted to jerk away. What was the matter with me?
He made a soft, aroused sound as he moved his lips to my ear. “Sweet Sauscony.” His voice murmured in a familiar cadence, a soft rhythm I recognized…
And the memory came to me, what I had so often heard it in my mind during combat, thoughts like acid that poured over me: Die, sweet Jagernaut. Die.
Ah, hell. I sat up so fast, my fingernails scraped the scabs on his arms. He sat more slowly, emotions washing across his face: surprise, embarrassment, desire. “What’s wrong?”
I took a shaky breath. Of course he acted Highton. He was Highton.
“It’s only cultural,” he murmured.
“I’m all right.” Across the room, the spire-clock ticked loudly.
“Try this.” Jaibriol nudged me onto my stomach. I lay warily, tensed and stiff as he straddled my hips so he was sitting on my bottom with his knees on either side of my waist. Then he started to rub my back.
“Oh.” I closed my eyes. “Oh, yes.” It felt heavenly.
In a few moments, though, he quit. I looked over my shoulder. “Why did you stop?”
His lips quirked upward. “I’m looking.”
“At my backside?” I snorted. “What’s so interesting about that?”
Jaibriol smiled, a full one this time. “Maybe it’s not to you.” He rubbed my behind, his motions more like caresses than a massage. “That’s because you can see it any time you want.”
Such a beautiful smile. I had forgotten the way it lit up his face. In that moment, he wasn’t the embittered heir to an Empire. Instead, he looked like what he should have been if his heritage hadn’t ruined his life, a healthy young man enjoying his first experience with a woman. I sighed and laid my head on the pillows.
Jaibriol kept massaging, his hands moving in firm, sensual circles. My muscles relaxed, and I basked in the sensations, soaking in his musky scent, that tantalizing scent that made me want him to rub more private places. He lay on top of me and took hold of my thighs, one hand on each leg, his erection pushing the cloth of his trousers against my behind—
Like Tarque.
Combat mode on, my spinal node thought.
For flaming sake. “Jaibriol, stop!” That would certainly be romantic if I hefted him onto the floor. Combat mode off, I thought.
He lifted his body, holding himself above me. “What’s wrong?”
I rolled onto my back. “It’s all right.” To the hell with Tarque. I wasn’t going to let that damn Aristo ruin my life ten years after he had died. Jaibriol and I only had a few hours left, hours far too precious to waste.
I cupped my hands around his face and pulled him into a kiss. His smell wafted around us, even stronger than before. Even though I knew the Rhon produced different pheromones than other humans, I wasn’t prepared for the intensity of it. His scent evoked reactions from my body far stronger than I had ever before experienced.
Jaibriol turned his head to kiss my palm. Then he sat up on his knees, straddling me, and put his finger between my breasts, poking it inside the magnetic seam that closed my jumpsuit. As he slid his hand down my front, the jumpsuit fell open, leaving my skin bare. He rubbed his palms over my breasts, and my nipples hardened, sticking up like an invitation.
We undressed each other slowly, exploring. He dropped my boots off the bed, and the heels clanged on my Jumbler. We slipped under the covers, between the silken sheets, bare skin against bare skin. I reached down, guiding him—there. As he moved inside of me, I closed my eyes, murmuring in his ear, meaningless noises. And finally we merged into a full Rhon meld, our minds blended, a joining even stronger than the one on Delos. It built as we built, stronger, higher, closer—until I surged into my peak, the release coming with gratifying intensity.
Sometime later, I became aware again. Jaibriol was lying on top of me, his cheek against mine. Sweat trickled off his chest and down my breasts. When I stirred, he lifted his head and kissed my closed eyelids.
“That was worth waiting for,” he said softly.
“Yes. It was.” What a monumental understatement.
“How long do you think before…?”
I opened my eyes. “Before Kurj finds us?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe tonight. Probably a few hours.” I wasn’t sure what Kurj would do when he realized just how thoroughly I had betrayed him. It wouldn’t be pretty, and I doubted it would be over quickly.
“Sauscony.” Jaibriol looked down at me. “I don’t want them to do to you what they’ve been doing to me.” He leaned over the side of the bed—and came with my Jumbler. He laid it between my breasts and lowered himself onto me so the gun formed a cold lump between our bodies. Taking my finger, he set it against the firing stud.
I felt as if I couldn’t breathe. “No.”
“We’ll die anyway. You know that.” His voice cracked. “We both know what it’s like to be tortured until you wonder how you can endure anymore. I don’t want to die like that. At least this way it will be in love instead of pain.”
I clenched the gun. He was right, but my instinct for self preservation was too strong. I couldn’t do it.
He spoke against my ear. “I can’t fire it. Only you can.”
I nudged off the safety and set my finger on the firing stud. Just one push—
A knock sounded at the door.
I jerked out from under Jaibriol and off the bed so fast that the covers flew into the air. I moved by reflex, grabbing Jaibriol’s shirt and yanking it over my head, I didn’t want to face our captors in the vulnerability of my nakedness. I raised the Jumbler, aimed at the door—
And when it opened, I almost shot my own father.
XVI
Heart Of The Web
He stood there, blinking behind his spectacles. He wore glasses because he didn’t trust Skolian doctors enough to let them work on his eyes. He kept his hair long, in the style of his people, the silver-streaked locks framing his face and brushing his shoulders. He was a well built man of average height with heart-stopping good looks that the public loved and that Kurj found useful for counteracting his own harsh image.
He looked at me standing there with my gun, dressed in only a gray prison shirt. Then he looked at Jaibriol, who was sitting naked on the bed. Finally he spoke to me in his native tongue, my first language. “Are you going to kill me, Sauscony?”
The thought that I might have hurt him was so upsetting I could hardly speak. I lowered the gun and clicked on the safety. “No. Never. You know that.”
He walked over to me. “That was you I felt in Kyle space last night, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. I hid from you.”
“I received a message from Kurj earlier. He told me to stay at the palace, where it’s safe. He believes Trader commandos have infiltrated the area.” He glanced at Jaibriol, who was pulling on his pants. Then he turned to me. “Is that true?”
“No. But Kurj thinks it is.”
“I see.” It was obvious, from his expression, that he didn’t see at all.
Fortunately Jaibriol stayed on the bed; my father had enough to handle right now without the added intimidation of the Highton Heir towering over him. Outwardly my father didn’t show much reaction. He just stood looking at us. But I felt him grappling with the situation like a wrestler fighting an opponent who far outweighed him.
After a moment, he spoke in Iotic, an obsolete language used only by scholars and the Skolian nobility. And my family. He had learned it because it was my mother’s native language. He was probably using it for Jaibriol’s sake; just as I had studied Highton, Jaibriol would have learned Iotic.
“Sauscony.” He adjusted his spectacles. “The man on your bed looks like Jaibriol Qox.”
“Yes, I know.” I shifted my weight. “That’s because he is Jaibriol Qox.”
My father cleared his throat. “The Highton Heir. That Jaibriol Qox.”
“Yes. That one.” I doubted there were any others.
He peered at Jaibriol, who had on his trousers now. “Why were you sitting naked on my daughter’s bed?” As Jaibriol opened his mouth, my father said, “No. Nevermind. I don’t think I want to hear the answer.”
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
“Do?” My father scowled at me. “Before or after I have heart failure?”
I couldn’t help but smile. “Before, I hope.”
“This isn’t amusing, Sauscony.”
I stopped smiling. “No. It’s not.”
He motioned at Jaibriol. “Please explain this to me.”
“I helped him escape,” I said. “That’s why Kurj thinks commandos are loose on Diesha.”
“Kurj captured Jaibriol Qox? And you freed him?”
I nodded. “After the alarm sounded, the only safe place was here.”
“The Imperator’s palace.”
“Yes.”
He seemed more bewildered than angry. “And just exactly what prompted this urge of yours to free Jaibriol Qox?”
I spoke softly. “Touch his mind. Then you’ll understand.”
He didn’t even turn. But I felt his attention shift as he reached toward Jaibriol’s mind. Although I wasn’t sure Jaibriol consciously realized what was happening, he responded, raising his blocks more by instinct than intention.
My father’s forehead creased. He sat in a chair at a table by my bed, looking at neither Jaibriol nor me. He concentrated harder—and Jaibriol blocked him again.
My father changed his approach as if he were trying to catch a skittish lyrine colt. He nudged Jaibriol here, there, and there, subtle mental knocks that came and went so gently, Jaibriol probably didn’t feel them. Even I could barely follow them. But that didn’t work, either. So my father came questioning to my mind, trying to reach Jaibriol through my link with him. As I relaxed my barriers, my father flowed into the link—
—and stood up so fast, he knocked over his chair. Jaibriol rose up to his knees, clenching the bedpost as if preparing to jump down and defend himself. I didn’t think he even realized his mental barriers had been bypassed.
My father stared at him. “You aren’t an Aristo.”
Jaibriol answered in perfect Iotic. “Of course I am an Aristo.”
“No,” my father said. “You aren’t.”
Jaibriol’s fist tightened the post. “Are you telling me you don’t consider me your equal?”
My father shook his head. “No. I am saying I think you are like me.”
“Jaibriol.” I sat next to him on the bed and laid my hand on his leg. “He won’t hurt you.”
He turned to me, his exhaustion falling like a blanket across my shoulders. Although he didn’t let go of the post, his grip on it eased enough that his knuckles were no longer white.
My father glanced at me. “Does Kurj know he is Rhon?”
“Not yet,” I said. “But when he finds out, he’ll be certain Jaibriol came to destroy the Triad.”
He turned back to Jaibriol. “Did you?”
Jaibriol met his gaze steadily. “No.”
My father considered him. Then he nodded. That was it. A simple nod. No more questions. No skepticism. No threats. Nothing. Just a nod. I couldn’t believe it.
You wouldn’t be here like this if you didn’t trust him, my father thought.
You know, I thought. You’re very different from Kurj.
He smiled slightly. So your mother tells me.
“I thoug
ht you and she were back home.” I spoke out loud, realizing how strange our silence must seem to Jaibriol. “Seeing the grandchildren and all.”
He pushed his spectacles up his nose. “My plans changed.”
That didn’t sound right. Given the choice of going home and being with my mother, the two things he most enjoyed doing, or coming to Diesha and being around Kurj, I couldn’t fathom his choosing Kurj. “Why?”
“I had a convulsion.”
What? I went over to him. “Aren’t you following your treatment?”
“Of course. I don’t know why it happened.” He paused. “Actually, it wasn’t one convulsion. I had several.”
My pulse jumped. “How many?”
“I don’t know. We were at home. I felt…strange. The next I knew, I was waking up in the hospital near the village. That offworld doctor made a fuss. She said I had a series of generalized tonic-clonic attacks back-to-back. She sent me here. I didn’t want to come but she insisted.” He scowled. “She contacted Kurj and he sent a ship for me.”
I took his hands. “Are you all right now?”
“I feel fine. None of the doctors found anything wrong.”
“And you don’t know why you had the seizures?”
“Probably the nightmare I had, that’s all.” He squeezed my hands and then let them go. “Stop looking at me with this worried face. You’re as bad as those doctors.”
I had never heard of a nightmare giving him epileptic seizures before. “What did you dream?”
“Someone was giving me shocks with an Espring. I couldn’t stop them because I was chained.” He squinted at me. “It is these machines, Sauscony. I don’t even know names for half of them. Mesh nodes and robots and things. They give me nightmares. It means nothing.”
I hardly heard him finish. One word kept jumping out at me. Espring. Like the interrogators had used on Jaibriol. “Who chained you?”
“I don’t know.” He waved his hand in dismissal. “Old soldiers have such dreams.”
About an Espring? I hadn’t even realized he knew what it was. He had spent most of his life in what, by Skolian standards, was abject poverty. I doubted anything resembling an Espring existed on the entire planet.
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